A career coach is not just some random relative or guy from the street. Instead, he/she is a trained professional person who knows what he/she is doing.
Career coaching is a worldwide phenomenon. People increasingly choose to find professional help for themselves e.g. when starting their career after graduation, thinking of their next major career move, or simply when they are unsure of what to do next.
Given the global momentum, it isn’t a surprise that career coaching is becoming widely available in Kenya. For many Kenyans, seeking professional career guidance is not quite an established practice yet, but it is nevertheless steadily gaining ground. Career coaching seems helpful to many, given that getting a new job is never easy and that there are much more applicants than open jobs available in Kenya.
We believe in the power of professional career coaching, independent of the person´s background or abilities. To inspire you a bit, here are our top 10 reasons on why talking to a career coach might be the best decision you ever make:
- Clarified objectives - One of the main jobs of a career coach is to help you define what you want in life. This is extremely important since most times, it makes sense to think through where those steps eventually lead you to. Further, the clarified goals are typically accompanied by a roadmap that defines the steps required, in a preferred sequence and timeline. Thus, your career plan gets much clearer.
- Better self-awareness - Career coaching is not “only” about planning, it’s also about knowing thyself better. A career coach can help you identify your strengths (those that you can rely on), weaknesses (those that you should work on e.g. through studying) and mind-sets (e.g. conditions under which you perform the best). The better you understand where you stand, the more confident you are to apply for jobs.
- Increased job seeking skills - A career coach can bring more focus to your job hunting, help you improve your job search-related documents, prepare you for the interviews and more importantly, help you to better sell your skills to employers. Further, a career coach can help you understand the status of the recruitment market, e.g. tell you what skills are currently needed in the job market. All of which are extremely important when you start applying for jobs.
- External view - Let´s face it. It’s always easier to objectively analyse the errors of other people than those you make yourself. When assessing yourself, you are always somewhat “too close” to be fair and reasonable. That is quite natural for the human being since we easily mix facts and feelings. A trained career coach can objectively analyse those things that you are individually pondering about – and eliminate those emotional biases you might have when thinking of what you can and can´t do in life.
- Professional approach - A career coach is not just some random relative or guy from the street. Instead, he/she is a trained professional person who knows what he/she is doing. That’s a great difference. Even though your friend might know you very well and give you smart-sounding advice, he/she is not qualified to do the job and probably hasn´t done much coaching before. Would you rely on your friend when getting your teeth fixed by a dentist? No? It’s the same thing when it comes to career coaching.
- Focus on you - A private one-on-one career coaching session is much better than for instance any classroom course that you typically might take. It is a highly personalized service, in which the focus is solely on you. This makes it extremely effective. Instead of making compromises, you can be sure that you will get full attention and a great opportunity to benefit from the expertise of the coach.
- Dedication - Life is often hectic. You may promise yourself to think hard of your future choices. But in practice, you often end up realizing that you didn’t have time to do all that due to all sorts of random stuff you had to accomplish during the day. A career coaching session is a dedicated time reserved for career development only. It is free of any interruptions or disorientation. In fact, many times, such dedication can help people gain an edge over rival candidates: they got it done whereas others didn’t.
- Trial and error - A career coaching session is a safe environment, in which experimentation and iteration is 100% allowed. You get to ask tough questions from yourself, those that you might not dare to ask elsewhere. You´re not expected to be perfect – but you are expected to have an open mind and willingness to learn. So instead of practicing with some real recruiters, you get to prep yourself with someone who can tolerate half-ready ideas and your personality as it is.
- Improved online presence - As you might know, job seeking is rapidly moving online, and building online presence is highly important for all job seekers. A career coach can help you with your digital self. You may get advice on what to write, like or comment online, what to avoid there, and how to cope with the digital environment in which recruiters are present. Remember, your online activities always leave a mark. You prefer to leave a positive mark, don´t you?
- Impact on your life - At the end of the day, your job, career, assignments, whatever are “just” a way for you to enjoy your life and get better as an individual. At best, a career coaching session can be a life-changing experience. You might realize that it is much more than just a career that you may wish to improve on. It could be your habits, mind-sets, or attitude too. The better your next job matches with your overall situation in life, the happier and more satisfied you will feel.
The current job market is extremely competitive and every open position typically gets hundreds of applications. Winning in it requires that one truly stands out from the crowd and delivers to the recruiters a complete and well-thought of package.
The better you have defined your sharp career goals and direction, know your strengths and weaknesses and have fine-tuned your applications, the better positioned you are for success. Career coaching can be your small but important step that takes you there.
Fuzu is a Finnish-Kenyan company that develops career guidance, online learning and recruitment services for the emerging markets. We help people to take the next step in life, get inspiration and unleash their hidden potential. Click here to see how you could benefit from Fuzu's career coaching service!
